Wabi Sabi For Writers
Find Inspiration. Respect Imperfection. Create Peerless Beauty.
by Richard R. Powell, published by Adams Media
What if deep poetry flowed through your day-to-day life? What if writing that
poetry was a path to enlightenment? Basho, the grandfather of haiku poetry,
named this path, "the Way of Elegance" because it connects you to grace and
fills your life with subtle beauty. 
I began writing Wabi Sabi for Writers, to communicate the significance
of this path for writers, but I ended up with a book for anyone who wants the
poetic light inside them to penetrate the darkness that surrounds them.
Basho knew the central defining quality of his culture was: "a sensitivity to
things," and he deliberately and thoughtfully crafted practices to support and
deepen that sensitivity. These practices allowed the quality to expand his life.
Unfortunately he found that while "a sensitivity to things" expanded his awareness
of beauty it also expanded his awareness of suffering. This heightened awareness
of both beauty and suffering leads some people to despair. This is because our
capacity to tolerate suffering in those around us seems to decrease as our awareness
increases. When faced with an increase in awareness of suffering, many people
instinctively turn away from sensitivity and become hardened, detached or distracted.
The Buddhist culture around Basho taught non-attachment as the correct approach
to suffering. Non-attachment was not a turning away from suffering, but a calming
of the emotional reactions to suffering through practice of the eightfold path.
All other solutions were seen as delusions or deceptions.
Contrary to this prevailing belief, Basho demonstrated that we can avoid developing
hard hearts without practicing non-attachment if, instead, we experiece our
attachments in a deeper way. Basho's interpretation of wabi sabi made this possible.
"Rather than attempt to avoid this reality by establishing fixed defense
points, fortresses, monuments, and statues, rather than relying on solid foundations,
building stable homes from which to venture and return, Basho fixed himself
to a different point of reference, a point caught up in the swirl of the storm.
He synchronized his trajectory with the moving mass of patterns and codes, memes
and ideas around him. With both emergence and acquiescence he was part of the
dance. In this perpetual movement he attained stillness because he was moving
relative to everything else."
- From Wabi Sabi for Writers by Richard R. Powell One
way to understand Sabi is to see it as a step beyond sensitivity to things,
to see it as a deep awareness of the poetry at the heart of all things. The
curious magic of this literary awareness is that while you are focused on the
poetry in each object of attachment, your ego is quieted. To have a sabi mind
you allow ego to rest in this un-voiced poetry. This new understanding of Sabi
as an antidote to despair was Basho's most important discovery. Sabi, he realized,
was central to the Way of Elegance.
The Way of Elegance encourages a creative response to challenge and difficulty
and produces eccentricity, pluckiness, fortitude, and resourcefulness. Yet sabi
by itself can be overdone. The depth and character that comes from this clear-minded
approach to life can make you feel mature, seasoned, and even superior. This
is where wabi comes in. Wabi is the humbling factor, the stabilizing reality
of the vastness and complexity of nature and our own place in it. When the two
are balanced, they produce a lightness in a writers work which Basho called
"karumi."
Wabi Sabi for Writers, presents wabi sabi as a balanced set of principles
that help a person face into the winds of change, look on the imperfect world
with acceptance, and find, mixed within the dark elements of existence, bright
strands of joy. Through examples and stories the book illustrates how to expand
your sense of beauty until each moment brims with light.
One of the key concepts on the way of elegance is "furyu." Basho discovered
in his life of reading and thinking and wandering and teaching and writing that
all of these things contributed to Furyu which literally means "in the way of
the wind and stream". It is putting yourself in the traffic, launching yourself
into the action, not necessarily as a player, but deliberately, as the eyes
and ears and taste buds and sense of smell. Furyu is a powerful tool that shows
you what you like, and also what you love.
Basho adopted Furyu as his central attitude and orientation and found that it
generated inspiration, poetry, and enlightenment. An ancient Japanese word with
roots in the Chinese language, Furyu describes a stance or approach that puts
a person on the path of elegance. If you would like to learn more about how
to develop Furyu in your life, about how to naturalize your creative activities
and find transcendence through harmony with nature, then Wabi Sabi for Writers
if for you.
Wabi Sabi for Writers is divided
into 9 chapters. Chapters 2 through 5 discuss ways of being that are mirrored
in chapters 6 through 9 which discuss acts of doing:
1 - Wabi Sabi for Writers: an introduction
2 - Inspiration: to make an impression, write with your feet
3 - Education: find your voice by moonlight
4 - Wabi Sabi Beauty: let poetry flow from your attachments
5 - Enlightenment: lose yourself in writing with a language
older than words
6 - Motivation: imitate a yak and share something wild
7 - Community: in a group of friends you can write from the
heart
8 - Wabi Sabi Elements: flowing words reveal constant content
9 - Craft: guidelines for developing a saving style
Where to buy the book. Wabi Sabi for Writers is now
available (July of 2006). If you have a local book seller please encourage her
to carry this title and recommend it to those who wish to write with wabi sabi
enlightenment.
If your local bookseller can not supply you with this title, please order your
copy online at: Amazon.ca
or your favorite online book store.
This introduction © Richard
R. Powell- April 2006
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